It's not about miracles!

At Dakshineshwar, the Master conveyed a beautiful and powerful message to the group traveling with Him on the 14 day parivrajaka. It's about miracles.. or rather not about miracles. Normally one would like to associate miracles, mysticism and out of the earth labels to God. They do the same with Masters also. It's our ego that stops us from accepting the fact that enlightened masters can also assume a human form like us, eat like us, walk like us and yet be in a space of higher consciousness. We cannot accept that because we want an "extra-ordinary" tag to be associated, something that our logic cannot comprehend. Only then we say "Yes, He is God!" It is almost like only miracles can prove to us about their divinity.

The Master warned us that by giving importance to miracles, the only thing we do is to create a gap between us and the Master. We create a distance by putting Him on a pedestal. He emphasized that the feeling of being deeply connected with the Master is what matters - building a connection that is based on simplicity and innocence. It should be that of love, not that of respect. The connection with the master He said is like a 'bridge' between us and the divine. And we don't have to do anything, just maintain, nourish and enjoy the deep connection, He will take care of the rest using that bridge!

He quoted two beautiful examples from the Mahabharata to illustrate this point. When the Bhagavat Geeta was being delivered to Arjuna by his best friend, Krishna, Arjuna was loaded with questions and skepticism. When Krishna declared "I am the Supreme, All Pervading, Indestructible etc", Arjuna only had more questions. There was a point when Krishna had to reveal His cosmic form, 'Vishwaroopa' to Arjuna in order to convince him. But immediately after that, Arjuna shuddered, he could not digest that his childhood friend standing in front on him was an embodiment of a vast energy that he couldn't comprehend. All along, he had only related with Krishna as his buddy, his close friend. When he saw His cosmic form, he collapsed. He begged Krishna to get back to His old jovial self, the friend he always knew. For Arjuna, it was only his simple, deep connection with Krishna as his best friend that eventually mattered for his spiritual growth.

Another example: There was once a sage who had attained all the possible spiritual knowledge and mastered all the deep spiritual techniques. But he still felt a void. He wanted to experience a loving relationship with God. He prayed to Vishnu and finally Vishnu blessed him saying that He will be born as his son in his next life. That sage was none other than Yashoda who take care of little Krishna as His mother. She enjoyed every little action as Krishna's mother, bathing Him, feeding Him, teasing Him, chasing Him and playing with Him blissfully.

Once, suddenly she thought "This child is like any other child. He throws tantrums, cries when he is hungry, giggles when you play with him... Is this really Vishnu or have I been fooled?" Krishna immediately understood Yashoda and wanted to reassure her. He showed her the cosmos in His mouth when Yashoda was feeding him. But the minute this happened, she was reminded of her past life and remembered the boon she was granted. She pleaded to Him to be back as that naughty little child of hers. Immediately Krishna covered the veil of Maya over her and she was back as the mother of Krishna.

The Master also told us that just like Krishna, the job of an enlightened master is to draw the veil of Maya on us. He just shrugs away the miracles by not attaching too much importance to them. This He does simply to make sure we do not get diverted to the miracles instead of the Truth. It is no doubt miracles happen with living enlightened masters every minute. But these are miracles to us because our tiny puny intellect cannot comprehend the mysteries of the macro and micro cosmos. Miracles can become an obstacle to our spiritual growth as our energy is dissipated and diverted away from the Truth.

Instead, if we just feel deeply connected with the Master, the very connection can take us to deeper and deeper realms of our own being. A deep connection with the master can be the most beautiful thing that can ever happen to anyone! It is a relationship that transcends all other relationship, a culmination of all our emotions. For all those of us who feel that deep connection with our Masters, let us cherish it and for the rest, taste it and see for yourself the sweetness of this relationship!

In Nithyananda!

Let us do our bit...

In the last couple of months, there have been two major natural disasters - a cyclone in Myanmar and an earthquake in China. Thousands of people perished, thousands were left homeless and thousands are still missing or unaccounted for in these disasters.

When such events or things like wars etc. occur, we who are sitting at home question - why this suffering? We don't stop at that question. We go on. We hold different people and even nature responsible for all the suffering. We curse the nature, we curse different people. We continuously abuse them.

We blame everyone and everything else for all these events in Universe. We sit in one corner of the world and comment on Existence. But we must understand one thing -

We are a part of the same Existence. Each of our thoughts, each of our words adds to the collective positivity or negativity.

All these natural disasters are nothing but the collective negativity of our own selves. All our negative thoughts, all our negativities come out as such natural disasters.

There have been experiments conducted in various places in the world where the crime rates decreased when people started group meditations. In U.S, Maharshi Mahesh Yogi's group performed group transcendental meditation (TM) and there are records which showed the crime rates decreased during those months. Recently, Vedic rituals called Mahasaptyagam were performed by disciples of Paramahamsa Nithyananda in various cities in India. This ritual involves 1008 people performing a fire ritual in a meditative state. It was found that again the crime rate reduced during those months in places like Chennai.

In one of our earlier post we discussed about Dr. Emoto's messages from water where thoughts like love and gratitude created wonderful crystals and thoughts like hatred generated ugly crystals. In our previous post on world peace, we also talked about a Hawaiin therapist who just with his thoughts filled with love cured criminally insane patients. That is the power of our own thoughts.

We think someone else is responsible for these natural disasters. We keep questioning, 'why God why? Why did you bring such calamity?' We simply don't realize that we are ones who are responsible for these events. We have been abusing the Nature not only with our actions but our thoughts also and now we blame someone else.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda says beautifully, 'We think each one of us is an island. We think we are individuals. Once we realize that all of us related to each other in the Universal Consciousness, all our negativities drop.'

Now that is the powerful statement... Why do we have negativities? Our negative thoughts are a result of our ego, our belief that each one of us is at a superior position than others. Each one of us thinks that we are a separate entity from others. An enlightened master or being sees things in a different perspective. He sees everything, all living and non-living as one Universal Consciousness or Existential Energy. He sees everyone around as a part of Him. Our Master keeps telling us, 'try to see the other person in front of you as a part of your own self.' When we do that, we see that we cannot have anything negativity towards the other person because the other is also a part of us.

It is high time that we cleanse our inner space to cleanse our outer place. Constantly purifying and watching our own thoughts through meditation or other means can actually prevent a natural calamity that is waiting to happen. Let us do our bit... after all every drop makes an ocean...

Let me leave you with a video of our Master giving the significance of Kumbha Mela which is an event to create collective positivity at one place.

Nithya Yoga Series 6 - Body Gratitude

Demand for Plastic Surgery continues to grow in the UK
Seoul to tout Cosmetic Surgery tourism
Cosmetic Surgery sure to increase in 2008
Plastic Surgery patients want Angelina's lips ...

All the above are newspaper articles that figured in the last few weeks. The last of the articles I found the most interesting:

"Eyes like Katie Holmes, the sultry pout of Angelina Jolie and a body like Jessica Biel make the perfect woman -- at least in the opinion of plastic surgery patients in Beverly Hills.

The most requested look-alike female nose was that of "Grey's Anatomy" star Katherine Heigl, while British actress Keira Knightley was tops in the cheek department, and Paris Hilton haD the most sought-after skin. The features most desired by men were Leonardo DiCaprio's nose, soccer player David Beckham's body and the blue eyes of the latest James Bond actor, Daniel Craig. George Clooney's cheeks and Matt Damon's lips also got top billing."

Interesting, isn't it? All of us, I am sure at some point in our lives would have looked at the mirror wishing to be somebody else. After reading this, I was reminded of what Swamiji talks about the deep gap that exists between our fantasies and reality. This is so true, isn't it? Nobody seems to be happy with what they have. That is why the mad running happens in the world today, people trying to be like someone else, look like someone else, dress like someone else.

This dates back to how we were brought up. Teenagers pick up ideas from media about their role models. These ideas are fueled with ads in TVs, hoardings etc about the perfect body, perfect figure and what not. Society not only plants ideas into people, it even knows where to cash on, that is why we see the boom of slimming centers, plastic surgeries and beauty salons. The funny thing is even the so called celebrities whom people wish to be also carry this same feeling of wanting to be someone else.

The more fantasies we collect about ourselves, we have moved away from the reality. We move away from what we have and put our energies into what we want to have. Let us understand that this body itself is a gift from existence to us. And let us remember to thank the universe for it.

Can we imagine doing anything at all without this body? Starting from breathing, to eating, to walking, to talking..! The very fact that we are born in this Universe, isn't that enough proof that existence cares for us? We forget that, take everything for granted and carry a deep unhappiness and vengeance for not being born as somebody else. We have only learnt to compare and abuse this body.

When we start to develop a loving relationship with our body, the body responds in the most beautiful way! In Nithya Yoga, we do a body gratitude meditation that puts us in a state of love and gratitude for this body. We remember every part of our body for all that it does to us, offer our deepest gratitude. By and by, we start to really respect our body instead of abusing it.

Swamiji says "Try this. When you are not well, just make your body sit on a soft bed/sofa, treat it nicely and just request it to become alright. You will be shocked to see it respond! All our so called bodily illnesses simply run away"

Most of our skin diseases arise because of a deep resistance to our body. Here is a small meditation technique that Swamiji gives that can put you in tune with your body. Not only has this technique shown to cure many skin ailments, it also restores a deep love and respect for our body. Every day, when you wake up in the morning, just when you are opening your eyes, touch every part of your body lovingly, starting from head to toe and offer gratitude to it. A beautiful way to start the day!

Here is a short discourse where Swamiji gives some insights into the human body being more than just a biomechanism, it is pure intelligence that can respond to us... Enjoy!